The Bratva’s Innocent Pregnant Bride (Fokin Bratva #11)

Chapter 1 - Daniil

I made my way down the drive, so long that it made the huge mansion at the end of it look like a normal sized house when I first went through the gates. My older brother Mat was doing well for himself, much better than when he first moved up to Silicon Valley.

As soon as I parked in front of the tall front doors, someone appeared out of nowhere, standing almost at attention as he waited for me to get out.

If only the hotel I was staying at had such efficient valet service.

I knew Mat had been having trouble, that was nothing new with our line of business, but the level of security surprised even me.

Now that I was paying attention, I noticed two more discreet guards almost blending in with the landscaping, their uniforms the same buff color as the mission inspired stucco of the house.

Hmmm, was I right and things weren’t as breezy as Mat made them out to be when he invited me for a visit?

Our other brother, Rurik, had arrived a few days ago and was staying with them.

The place was big enough to shelter almost our entire family, so I’d been offered a room as well, but decided there would be more freedom at a hotel.

Before I got out and handed over the keys to one of the eager security guards acting as valets, I checked the rearview mirror.

Bloodshot eyes not too bad thanks to a copious amount of eyedrops and half a pot of coffee when the wake up call jarred me out of bed much too early.

The scruff around my jaw wasn’t out of the ordinary and my hair was always on the wrong side of unruly, so hopefully no one would notice I’d been at the hotel bar until the wee hours.

Even if they did, what was up with insisting I come for breakfast of all things?

A few extra hours of sleep after last night would have taken care of those bloodshot eyes.

There was a time when Mat at least could appreciate a crowded bar with live music and flowing drinks.

My brothers and I survived on energy drinks to get us through to whenever we could find the time to grab a sandwich.

Now we had time for sit down breakfasts?

I wondered if this was Mat’s new wife CJ’s influence, but even she should have been glued to her chair over in the wing that housed her new information technology company.

As soon as I rang the doorbell, the sound of raucous dog barking greeted me, paws scrabbling at the door, and then CJ’s laughter as she opened it.

The rangy dog jetted past me, down the steps, did three fast turns around my car, nearly taking out one of the guards, then planted his paws on my chest.

“He’s happy to see you again,” CJ said, tugging her dog down so she could kiss my cheek. “So am I.”

I scratched Artem behind the ear. He shared the name of our cousin’s young son, and it was odd how they were so similar despite being completely different species. The toddler boy was probably braver though, since the dog Artem tended to be a bit of a crybaby.

I was happy to see CJ again too. She and my older brother Mat had been through the ringer but ended up blissfully married, already disgustingly settled down after less than a year together, and were working side by side to increase the family territory and coffers.

She led me through to the kitchen, saying everyone was already there. The delicious scent of bacon and eggs reached me halfway down the long hallway and I decided maybe breakfast wasn’t such a waste of time after all.

Over the din coming from the kitchen, I heard my younger cousin, Masha’s, voice and froze in the hallway, glaring at CJ.

“A little warning would have been nice,” I said, angry enough to turn around and storm out of there.

My patient sister-in-law sighed. “He’s not here. It’s just Masha, and believe me, she’s not happy about it.”

So our cousin, who was more like a little sister to Rurik, Mat, and me, and who we’d been watching over and fighting side by side with since she was old enough to aim a gun, had gone and married one of our worst enemies.

Now all of a sudden we were supposed to accept Anatoli Ovinko as one of our own.

Most everyone had, but I wasn’t buying it.

While it seemed like he was treating her right and was no longer trying to take our family down, I still mostly just wanted to smash his face in whenever I saw him.

Masha had invited me to dinner last night at their new place, and the hope in her voice that I’d accept had almost broken me.

But there was no way I could be civil to Anatoli for several hours in a row.

Maybe if they made it to their tenth anniversary I could accept him as family, but right now?

After everything he did to us, and her? No fucking way.

“She knows damn well how I feel.”

“And you know how she feels,” CJ said mildly.

“She’s brainwashed.”

“Was I brainwashed by your brother?” she asked.

I floundered on that one, because she certainly had every reason to hate the man she now loved more than life itself. My brother would have gone to the ends of the earth for her, though. Could any of us say the same about Anatoli?

By the time we got to the kitchen, I was able to keep my feelings to myself, but found that the easy camaraderie between Masha and I felt stiff and forced despite the fact I was perfectly nice to her.

Did she look happy? Yes, but she was a master at undercover operations, easily fooling plenty of our enemies in the past to weasel information out of them.

Could she be fooling all of us? Or worse, was Anatoli playing her like a fiddle, waiting for his time to strike?

And now there was another dog attacking me with slobber and yips. This one was just about the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, half an ear, bald patches showing under a silly blue sweater.

“This is Frederick,” Masha said, tossing a ball to the scrappy mutt. He caught it and dropped it at my feet, wagging his tail so hard that half his little body wobbled back and forth.

“Wow, adopting a dog,” I said. “That’s a big step.”

“It was a surprise from Anatoli,” she told me, a proud and delighted smile lighting up her face. Yeah, she looked more than happy.

She and Masha put the dogs out on the back patio so we could eat in peace and the little one began chasing Artem like he was twice his size.

“They’re already like brothers,” CJ said. “But I hope Fred takes it easy on him.”

“You baby that dog too much,” Mat said, dropping a kiss on top of her head.

I hadn’t even taken a bite of the steaming cinnamon rolls the cook placed on the table and already I had a toothache from too much sweetness. Could there have been a little stab of envy that I hadn’t found the right woman to get all ridiculous with yet?

No. In fact, hell no.

As we settled in at the table, Rurik mentioned something about needing a new coat, joking about being in LA for so long that he’d gotten rid of the parkas and winter gear necessary for winters in Moscow, but not at all necessary in southern California.

“Are you moving up here too?” I asked. While Rurik did keep things close to his chest, this was something I was sure he would have shared with me.

He shook his head. “No, for Aspen.”

“He doesn’t know yet,” CJ said when I looked even more confused.

“You’re moving to Aspen? That’s not even in California is it?”

“It’s in Colorado,” Masha said, rolling her eyes, but I bet she had to Google it when she first found out. We’d only been residents of the US for less than a year. And why was she in the loop about something before I was?

CJ pushed a couple of printed out papers to me, a big, tentative smile on her face. “We’re all going for Christmas,” she said.

“The four of you?” I asked, then quickly corrected myself when Masha scowled. “I mean, five of you?”

“All of us,” Rurik said. “The whole family. For three weeks.”

My jaw dropped. All of us? What hotel could even hold us? “Aleks is okay with this?” Three entire weeks? A turf war could start and end in that amount of time.

“It was his idea,” Masha said. “We were thinking about going to Mexico, but this sounds fun. I haven’t skied since I was around ten.”

“It was his idea,” I repeated slowly, because I couldn’t believe it. Did I really have to give my family a reminder of what we’d been going through? And what was still a very real threat?

“The Collective have been quiet,” Mat said, easily reading the thoughts that had to be written all over my face.

“Hmm, do you think they could be waiting for every last one of us to bury our heads in the snow?”

CJ snickered at my sarcasm but this was no joke. “Our intelligence shows that they’re scattered, running scared.”

“Especially after Anatoli and I handed them their asses,” Masha said smugly.

They had managed to track and kill the top dog at the time, and taken out a good deal of their upper management in the same coordinated attack, but the Collective wasn’t out of the game, not by a long shot.

“We were only a few minutes behind you,” I said, not wanting any credit to go to Anatoli.

We arrived in the aftermath and thought she was Anatoli’s hostage.

Things got a bit messy after that, and it was clear Masha was remembering it, and not fondly.

I might have been somewhat overzealous in my beatdown of her husband, but all I knew was my favorite cousin had been missing for weeks and then turned up with our archenemy, covered in bruises.

He was lucky I didn’t kill him then and there.

“I’m not buying that there’s no danger,” I said, quickly changing the subject back to the Collective, who were certainly still looming in the background, biding their time.

“Just look at this place,” CJ said, pushing her printouts closer to me.

“Nobody’s saying there’s no danger,” Mat interjected. “But there’s just less danger right now. Why not have a nice family Christmas together?”

Oh, he was long gone. Completely and utterly yoked.

I looked down at the picture of the place they’d booked and while it looked great, I couldn’t imagine anything more stifling than three weeks with my family in a secluded mountain lodge.

Oh, I loved them and would die for them, but they were all so stodgy lately.

I could never count on my bookish younger brother Rurik to get up to any fun, either.

“I think you’re crazy,” I said. Not only did sitting around with cups of cocoa while watching a fire sound as bad as getting my fingernails peeled back—and yes, it had happened—they were insane to think the Collective was no longer a threat. “Almost an entire month away from home?”

“We’ll obviously still have security monitoring everything,” Mat said, looking severely disappointed in me.

I shook my head, getting up, feeling like this trip was a waste of time.

I thought we were going to get down to business, put together a solid plan to stay ahead of the international group that had been whittling away at our businesses in Moscow and down in LA.

They’d even followed Masha up here, nearly ending her life, for God’s sake.

No, they were going to hide out in a winter wonderland for most of December.

“It’s Christmas, Dan,” CJ said, reaching for my hand as I pushed back my chair.

“Yeah, don’t be a Scrooge,” Masha piped up.

I dodged CJ and gave Masha a grim look. She should know better. Love had made her as complacent as the others. “I don’t care if it’s Christmas, or if you think I’m a Scrooge. I’m going back to LA to finish what should have already been done by now.”

Nope, no family style resort for me. Not when our livelihood and even our lives were at stake. Who the hell cared what time of the year it was? Not the Collective, that was for sure.

“Dan,” Mat called as I stalked down the hall toward the front door. He was pulling the big brother, authoritative voice, but I ignored it.

“The Collective is too big to put on hold,” I called back over my shoulder. “I’ll try to remember to video chat you on Christmas day.”